- Amazon sent an email to a group of employees on Friday ordering them to save any files that may be related to the FTC’s investigation into its Prime membership program.
- The FTC is investigating whether Amazon intentionally obscured Prime’s sign-up and cancellation process.
- This shows that Amazon takes the FTC investigation seriously and wants to ensure that evidence has not been tampered with.
Amazon has ordered its employees to retain all documents and data related to the Federal Trade Commission’s ongoing investigation into Prime’s sign-up and cancellation process.
An internal email from Amazon’s litigation and regulatory department representatives, shared Friday and obtained by Insider, asked a group of employees to “keep” all company files related to the FTC-Prime investigation. instructed. The employee “must save relevant documents and data” stored on his work and home computers, personal devices and even his CDs and DVDs, the email said. Files covered range from hard copies and electronic documents to emails, instant his messages and calendar entries.
Only some employees who “may have such information” received the email, the company said.
“Preserve all relevant documents and data, regardless of when they were created or received, whether or not you created the document, even if the relevant portion is only a small part of the document or data. I need it.” I read the email.
An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The company’s cooperation shows that it takes FTC investigations seriously and aims to avoid tampering with evidence by its employees. As Insider first reported in his March, the FTC has been investigating Amazon’s Prime membership sign-up and cancellation process for several years. In August, Amazon asked the FTC to reverse subpoenas sent to executives such as Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy, saying they were only intended to “harass.” was rejected by
In previous filings, the FTC cited Insider’s March article extensively. The article was the first to report that the company has long been aware of the issue and was considering ignoring it internally, fearing it would slow Prime’s expansion growth.
Last week’s email stated that Amazon employees must retain all relevant files created after March 1, 2018 and covers the following topics:
- Subscription registration and cancellation, including the design and evaluation of the membership registration and cancellation customer experience.
- A study of customer experience in both subscription registration and cancellation. This includes consumer research and data tracking to evaluate customer experience throughout the registration and cancellation process.
- Policies and procedures for registering and canceling subscriptions.
- Customer complaints regarding subscription registration and cancellation.
- Communicate with government authorities regarding subscription registration and cancellation.
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